For those who are concerned about fracking, from outspoken opponent Yoko Ono or the environmentally conscious soccer mom down the street, all their fears may now be allayed. That's because, as it turns out, fracking is 100 percent safe.
At least, that's what BP Capital CEO/Chairman T. Boone Pickens declared while speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference 2013 held in Los Angeles from April 28 through May 1. In addition to fracking, Pickens also pontificated on such topics as Oklahoma earthquakes and the reasons why he decided to get out of the wind energy industry.
It should be noted that Pickens is not just the CEO/Chairman of BP Capital — a hedge fund not to be confused with BP plc, the infamous multinational oil/gas company — and is not just the 328th richest person in America or 879th richest person in the world, according to a Forbes assessment in 2011. Pickens also really knows his fracking.
Pickens, who refuses to believe the notion that fracking (aka hydraulic fracturing, a means of extracting natural gas and petroleum from the ground) has caused damage to environment in any way, began fracking himself as early as 1952.
According to The Daily Ticker, Pickens has been involved in fracking more than 2,000 wells over those six decades, and says he has not once noticed any "environmental issues."
"You're not damaging anything," Pickens said about fracking. "Nobody gives any evidence you're damaging anything."
Pickens added that he doesn't believe fracking has anything to do with such natural disasters as earthquakes, including those that hit Oklahoma and have been suggested to have been induced by the oil-inducing process by a 2012 report by the National Academies of Science that says otherwise.
The journal Geology confirms the National Academies of Science's findings in a study published that details how deep underground drilling as part of fracking resulted in a drastic increase of earthquakes in Oklahoma.
"In 2009 the state experienced more than 1,000 earthquakes compared to the yearly average of 50," The Daily Ticker relayed from Geology's report. "Scientists now say Oklahoma's largest earthquake in 2011 — with a 5.7 magnitude that was felt in at least 17 states — was indeed caused by fracking."
Regardless of the fact that filmmaker Josh Fox shows in the documentary Gasland how denizens of Pennsylvania were able to literally light their drinking water on fire, Pickens nevertheless balks at the idea fracking has anything to do with it.
"Gas was seeping into an aquifer, which happens continually in the earth's crust ... it has nothing to do with fracking or gas wells," Pickens said.
Pickens nevertheless seems to have some staunch opponents aside from Ono, all of whom feel that fracking does negatively effect the environment, including such deleterious realities as air pollution, groundwater contamination and the destruction of wild lands.
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